FNQ Road Trip Planning!

Beforehand I was really busy researching plans for a road trip from Townsville, so that when my friend from home and her 2 kids arrived for their visit, they would already have ideas for what to do - and could spend their time here carrying out plans, not making them!

A lot of time and effort went into these plans, so it seemed a shame to just delete them. Instead, I thought I would post them up here so that they can maybe help someone else who is planning something similar. I have edited it slightly so that it makes sense for here, and to reflect what we did if it differed a lot from the plan. Of course none of this is exhaustive - there are always more options!

Far North Queensland Road Trip – an example itinerary (with costings where possible)

Just a little note about the prices I’m quoting – most places say that 16 is the adult/child age boundary, but some say 14. They were correct at the time of writing...

Day 1: Townsville to the Cassowary Coast (Mission Beach or Kurramine Beach)

Leave Townsville in the morning, stop off on the way to get ice cream at Frosty Mango!

Continue on to see the Wallaman Falls – the tallest single-drop waterfall in Australia, and in the World Heritage listed Wet Tropics region. This is a bit further along from Trebonne on the map above. We’ll be there at the best time of year for visiting, and can go for a short walk to view the falls and maybe see some wildlife, perhaps even a platypus.

Head back to the highway and carry on north: Cardwell is a good spot to stop for a coffee if needed, lunch or a snack if that’s the time we are there, and it has a bit of a walkway with nice views of Hinchinbrook Island for stretching our legs if we want.

Tully is one of the spots in Australia that claims to be the wettest (have the highest rainfall). Australia likes ‘Big Things’, and Tully has a big welly boot – The Golden Gumboot – to mark the heights of its floods. It’s worth a quick look as it only takes 5 mins.

Camp at the Cassowary Coast. Council camp sites there are $17 total for 1 night. Mission Beach or Kurrimine Beach sites are best as they have hot water, showers and toilets, and BBQs if we want to cook our own food. The 2 places are near to each other, so wherever we stay we can visit both: Mission Beach has 14km of beach, while Kurrimine Beach is the place where the Reef is closest to the shore – King Reef is only 800m away!! You register on arrival for these, so we can potentially look at both and decide which we prefer. (These sites were full when we arrived, so we camped at the Jackaroo Hostel instead.)

Day 2: Cassowary Coast to Cairns

Get up at a reasonable time, shower and pack up. Breakfast could either be food we’ve brought with us, or we could have brekkie at a cafe.

Enjoy Mission Beach for a while, and maybe snorkel near the Great Barrier Reef from Kurrimine Beach!

Depending on how long we want to stay around there, we could have lunch in the area, and leave at around 2pm to make sure we get to Cairns before dark, or we could travel on a bit further before stopping for lunch. If time allows, we should take in the Babinda Boulders on the way, as it’s another beautiful and free thing to do!

I also found another National Park as a different option, Mount Hypipamee National Park. It has an old volcanic crater that is now a lagoon, with walking paths and waterfalls etc. And apparently, there are tree kangaroos there!! You can camp there, so it could be another overnight spot either on the way north or on the return journey south. (...we didn't do this)

Check into accommodation and head into Cairns to see the night markets. Have dinner either in Cairns or cook ourselves.

Accommodation options for Cairns includes YHA or camping. We ended up camping at the Cairns Holiday Park. It was pretty good with all the facilities you need, and well situated for doing stuff around the city.

Day 3: Cairns and around, 2-3 days probably

Cairns city doesn’t have much to see in terms of sights, but it might be good to have a day there to check out all options for booking trips to the reef (if we haven’t already done so in advance). If more beaches are required we can drive out to Palm Cove for a bit. 

 

There is a free outdoor pool on the Esplanade we could use if we wanted some time actually in Cairns. There are also the night markets to visit if we didn’t see these on the first evening, these are touristy and have some fun stuff to see.

From Cairns, there are several things to do:

1. The Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail: $110 each ($55 for Child). If this is too expensive, we can drive to the same place as the train goes and try to see as much as possible that is similar to what you would get on the train. There is also the option to do just the train ride, and I can meet you at the top and drive us back after we've had a look around Kuranda.

2. Boat trips and snorkelling to see the Great Barrier Reef and all the fish and turtles etc: it is expensive to go out deeper into the reef, which would be the best parts to see. The cheapest way to see the reef is if we get a boat to Green Island, $88 each ($44 for Child), then do our own snorkelling for free from the beaches there. You can also book paid-for snorkel tours from this island that take you to see more of the corals etc, $44 each ($29 for Child). To go to the reef proper, I haven’t yet been able to find a trip for less than hundreds of dollars each.

3. Some of the aboriginal cultural experiences are near Cairns: Tjapukai is $60 each 

(We did 1 & 2 above, but not 3)

Day ~5-6: Port Douglas and Daintree – can be done as day trips, or as more road trip if we want to keep going :)

Port Douglas isn’t too far from Cairns, and it’s a beautiful drive where the road hugs the coastline, with plenty of places that you just want to stop at and admire the view. Port Douglas itself is pretty and has plenty of tourist shops, plus an impressive looking YHA, and a beach called Four Mile Beach.

We could do this as either a day trip from Cairns if we didn’t want to travel much further, or it could be the next part of the road trip, either staying in/near Port Douglas overnight or carrying on further.

From PD, if we decide not to road trip any further then we can still do a 1 hour river cruise up at Daintree to see crocodiles and other wildlife - this trip was only $25 per adult when I did it before Christmas, so I don’t think it will have gone up by much, if at all, since then. (This is also possible as day trip from Cairns if we stop road tripping there)

That area is also in the Daintree Rainforest, which is the largest rainforest in Australia, and yet another World Heritage Site! (After the Reef, and the Wet Tropics). The cheapest way to visit the rainforest seems to be via Mossman, which has the Mossman Gorge. You can do self-guided walks and swim in the water holes, and it looks beautiful. There is also the opportunity to do an Aboriginal experience here, $60 each again ($30 for Child) as an alternative to the one at Cairns.  

The rainforest might need a day of its own, in which case we could stay at Port Douglas another night, or possibly stay at Daintree. (I can’t find much about accommodation in Daintree online, but I’m sure when I was there I saw hostels or campsites).

(We didn't go to Port Douglas or, unfortunately, Mossman Gorge, but did spot crocodiles on the Daintree before continuing to Cape Tribulation on Day 5)

Day ~7 onwards: Cape Tribulation

Cape Tribulation looks fun to get to, it involves taking the Daintree River Ferry, tropical Australia’s only cable ferry apparently… This area just looks stunning, and here the Daintree Rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef. You can do things like kayaking trips to explore, and possibly see turtles, dolphins, dugongs etc ($85, $60 for Child). There is ziplining in the jungle for $95 each. There is also Captain Cook history as he ran his boat aground near there, before going on to what is now Cooktown to fix it up again.

For free, there are boardwalks with information boards taking you through the rainforest/mangroves, with loads of wildlife to see and the evolution of land plants in evidence as some of the forest is from the prehistoric Gondwana super-continent (pretty WOW!)

There’s probably more to do as well, as I’ve seen Cape Trib advertised as a destination for travellers in loads of places. There seem to be plenty of camping options there, and there is also a YHA. PKs Jungle Village offers camping as an option, it also seems to have a good range of excursions on offer, and can help with making bookings as there is no mobile phone reception in Cape Trib. 

Heading back to Townsville

Driving back from Port Douglas or Cairns, and probably Cape Tribulation, is do-able in 1 day, but we might want to break the journey somewhere along the way. Of course, if we have the money and there was something we feel we missed out on, we could break the journey anyway!